Word of the Day
: July 2, 2025galumph
playWhat It Means
To galumph is to move in a loud and clumsy way.
// I could hear them galumphing around in the attic in search of old family photo albums.
galumph in Context
“Dragons! Dragons roaring! Dragons squawking! Dragons sizing each other up! Dragons galumphing over the sand so awkwardly it reminds you that dragons are creatures of the air, not the earth.” — Glen Weldon, NPR, 28 July 2024
Did You Know?
Bump, thump, thud. There’s no doubt about it—when someone or something galumphs onto the scene, ears take notice. Galumph first lumbered onto the English scene in 1872 when Lewis Carroll used the word to describe the actions of the vanquisher of the Jabberwock in Through the Looking Glass: “He left it dead, and with its head / He went galumphing back.” Carroll likely constructed the word by splicing gallop and triumphant, as galumph did in its earliest uses convey a sense of exultant bounding. Other 19th-century writers must have liked the sound of galumph, because they began plying it in their own prose, and it has been clumping around our language ever since.
Test Your Vocabulary with M-W Quizzes
Quiz
Unscramble the letters to create a word meaning “to walk awkwardly with dragging feet”: BHESLAM
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